Frequently Asked Questions (2024)

Hydration: Wet food is just that—wet. Thrive Complete Wet food is great for helping your kitten or cat stay well-hydrated, which is very important for their health. Cats aren't good at ensuring they are drinking enough water, so this is a way we can really help boost their hydration levels.

Here at Thrive, we formulate our recipes with 'free liquid' water. Unlike many other 'wet' foods, we don't use added fillers or artificial gelling agents that 'bind' water and make the products appear to be less wet. When it comes to wet food, our philosophy at Thrive is: "wetter is better!"

High Protein: To ensure your cat has the best nutrition to look and feel their best, all Thrive wet foods are very high in protein and made using human-quality meat and fish. A diet of high-quality animal protein supports your feline friend to hold on to lean body mass from kitten through to senior cat. Our aim is to ensure your cat has the very best diet in order to thrive!

Variety: We may all prefer to eat chicken rather than fish or the other way around but eating the same thing for every meal each day is not the best for your cat. Variety for gut health is important. Thrive offers 12 flavours of the best complete wet foods which offers them the variety they need and will enjoy. By adding dry food to your cat's diet, you can offer other textures and flavours too.

‘Complete’ is a regulation phrase used that guarantees that a pet food has all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients that your pet requires for a balanced diet. Other pet foods may instead use the phrase ‘complimentary’ which means that it really is a treat at best, or in most cases at worst!

All Thrive dry and wet foods are complete, so whether you feed them together or on their own, you can be confident that you are providing your pet a nutritionally balanced diet.

Domestic cats are obligate carnivores meaning they depend on a meat-based diet and cannot thrive or survive without it. Cats have a number of special dietary requirements including amino acids (such as taurine, methionine, and cysteine), essential fatty acids, the perfect amount of vitamins (Including A, D and B3), and high protein. Therefore, it's crucial to feed your cat a properly balanced meat diet. This is why our wet and dry foods are all COMPLETE, ensuring that your cat receives everything they need from their food to thrive.

There is no difference! Some brands like you to believe that they use vets to make their foods, but vets are not specialist nutritionists; they are specialists in care. We develop every Thrive recipe with specialist nutritional experts to create the very best for your cat.

Thrive products have been recommended and sold by thousands of vets in many countries since 2003. Vets approve of Thrive because they have seen the results of feeding Thrive for more than 20 years.

We take pride in using high-quality and human-quality ingredients – not the dodgy bits! For example, our Shrimp treats are just that: whole peeled shrimp and our chicken is 100% chicken breast. These are the same ingredients that go into salads, soups, and sandwiches that you’ve probably eaten yourself. The tuna in our Tuna treats is caught by pole and line, and only responsibly fished tuna is used in our Thrive Complete wet food so you can buy Thrive knowing that you are buying responsibly and buying the best!

100% Real, 0% Nonsense.

At Thrive we believe that both you and your pet are what you eat. Because of this, we’ve used our 30+ years of experience in making premium quality food for humans to create ‘real’ pet food with simple, easily recognisable high-quality ingredients, which we have been doing for over 20 years. We insist on using human-grade cuts of meat or fish, no substitutes, and absolutely no animal derivatives. Our food is completely pure and free from artificial colours, flavours, preservatives, added sugars, wheat, gluten, dairy, soya, and GM ingredients. You could say that it’s what we leave out that makes us different!

Open a tin or tube of Thrive and you’ll see exactly what you are feeding your pet: 100% goodness, 0% nonsense.

Grain-free for our feline friends? Grains have developed a bad reputation when used in cat food, after all, when was the last time you saw a cat running through a wheat field eating the plants?

Because cats are obligate carnivores they need meat, so we KNOW you must feed your kittens and cats a complete, high quality, and high meat content diet, with variety.

Thrive dry foods are grain-free and very high in meat content. They are made from human-quality meat and cooked very gently to preserve all of the essential nutrients needed.

Where necessary, we’ll use small quantities of simple hypoallergenic carbohydrates such as potato and sweet potato that are a bit easier to digest than grain, just so we are able to stick things together naturally.

You may wonder if it’s worthwhile or not to give your cat treats, so we’ll tell you more about Thrive kitten and cat treats…

Thrive treats are simple - 100% real cuts of great quality fresh fish and meat, gently freeze-dried to lock in the flavour and goodness. Thrive cat treats are 0% nonsense and 100% irresistible so they can be given at any time. Thrive cat treats are available in tuna, chicken, salmon, shrimp and white fish and chicken liver - we’d love to hear which is your cat’s favourite!

If you've ever tasted freeze-dried strawberries in breakfast cereals, you'll know how appetising they look and how impressive they taste. We’ve used this same technology for ‘cooking’ our treats to create a range of healthy and delicious freeze-dried treats for your cat that are irresistible. Combining low temperature and low pressure for up to 24 hours, this extremely gentle drying method means the finished product changes very little in size or colour, although it will weigh considerably less. The natural flavours are enhanced and the nutritional content, including the vitamins, are undamaged. As cats have many more taste buds that are much more sensitive than ours, you can understand why the flavour of Thrive treats really gets their attention!

We prioritise the welfare of animals in the production of Thrive products by adhering to the highest standards. We care about every single ingredient that goes into Thrive products, that’s why we have such short ingredient lists!

We ensure that our products meet the current UK and EU animal welfare legislation, and where appropriate, they also align with the standards set by internationally recognised animal welfare organisations. Our fish products are sourced from sustainable origins. Additionally, we are proud to have received ethical accreditation from the ‘Ethical Company Organisation’.

Our policy on animal testing is that we do NOT believe in testing our products on caged animals or in carrying out invasive testing.

Thrive pet foods contain only pure ingredients, and all new Thrive foods are tasted by the human owners of Thrive. Only after that do we offer them to our pets and our friends’ pets to see if they like them.

We see no value in testing pet food products on animals that are not kept in a loving environment purely and simply as pets. Additionally, our pet foods are tested by independent outside labs and authorities to ensure they meet recommended nutritional guidelines.

In nature, cats eat regularly throughout the night and day.

Unlike dogs, most cats are similar in size and, with a normal activity level (sleeping all day and who knows what at night!), they need between 2-3 cans of our wet food or about 50 grams of our dry food or a mix of both.

Therefore, we suggest feeding your cat perhaps three times a day. A lot of cat owners feed a can in the morning and the evening and leave some dry food for them to graze on during the day. With such high quality meats they won’t over eat.

We have feeding guides as required by legislation and regulation; however, it's important to note that these guides are only guides. Every cat is different and will require a different amount of food each day for various reasons. Cat breeds range in sizes from Main Coon to a Singapura, so simply saying ‘feed x amount per kg of cat weight’ is the best we can do, but it isn’t entirely accurate. Other factors such as the season (cats eat more in winter), their activity levels, age, growth spurts, and many more factors means that the best approach is to give your cat a good cuddle once a week. You need to feel ribs but not necessarily see them.

It’s up to you and your cat, but most cat owners feed a mix of wet and dry food each day. Often it's a can in the morning and evening with dry food left out during the day to snack on. That’s not a bit of each in a bowl all mixed together, but that can also work if they like it. Cats need lots of hydration and our Thrive Complete wet foods have ‘free liquid’ which is fantastic for them, while our dry foods have the crunch to help keep their jaws healthy.

Lots of people like to give their cats a mix of both wet and dry food which means their cat can snack on the dry food when they are peckish but have their wet food served at meal times.

Most cats like to explore and try different foods and enjoy a variety of flavours which is why we have more than 12 delicious flavours of nutritious foods available for your pet.

Wet food has a much higher water content than dry food, so it can help ensure adequate water intake, especially as cats naturally obtain much of their water from their food (meat has a high-water content). In some situations, especially some medical conditions, it may be important to increase a cat’s water intake, and therefore feeding a wet food is better.

Our Thrive dry food is a COMPLETE food. The recipe contains EVERYTHING that you would expect from a premium cat food, without any unnecessary extras, offering your cat an easy to digest and balanced nutrition with premium ingredients.

Whatever you decide, always ensure your pet has access to a supply of fresh water.

The Comfy Collar comes highly recommended by many vets as a pet-friendly way to prevent your cat from biting, scratching, and licking wounds, incisions, or other injured areas.

Unlike traditional lampshade collars, the Comfy Collar allows your pet to sleep and eat in a normal position, and enables them to see normally, making them feel more comfortable. Additionally, it is fully washable and folds flat for storage when not in use.

To buy, please visit https://comfycollars.com/

Thrive kitten wet food is a complete food for kittens, making it a perfect choice. The kitten food contains added fats from sunflower oil, which are essential for kittens to thrive. However, depending on the breed of the cat, our range of complete wet cat foods for adults can be fed to kittens from 4-6 months onwards.

We offer kitten foods in 100% tuna and 100% chicken and as they get older, we have 12 varieties of foods, as we all know having a wide variety of ingredients is best for your cat’s gut health.

Our Thrive dry foods are made of such high-quality ingredients that they are suitable for kittens as well as adult cats. They are available in three flavours; Chicken, Salmon & Herring, and Chicken & Turkey.

Depending on the breed of the cat, our range of complete wet cat foods for adults can be fed to kittens from 4-6 months onwards. However, we suggest you transition from kitten to adult food anytime from 6 -12 months of age.

Thrive dry food is suitable for kittens and cats.

Fundamentally, every living creature, including cats, needs a calorie intake that matches their calorie usage to maintain their weight. The challenge is that their requirements change daily. All creatures, including cats, have different needs and burn calories based on various factors such as the time of year (eating less in summer than in winter), their activity levels, and their lifestyle - if they sit around or are out partying all day… This can make a huge difference, however metabolism also takes effect and as we all know some of us eat more than others and never put on weight and others eat less and…

We suggest giving your cat a good feel, disguised as a cuddle once a week and if you think they are getting a bit larger, reduce the amounts of food you feed, and vice versa. In over 20 years we have never had an issue arise from feeding Thrive. If they are overweight, reduce the amount by a very small amount each day and take months to get to your goal; there is NO rush.

Other brands have separate senior foods. They do this because their adult foods are made with the least nutrition needed, whereas an older cat needs more.

However, we don't feed older human citizens a different food, and at Thrive, our adult food is perfect for all ages. The only exception is our wet foods for kittens, as we like to add more oil, which an adult and senior cat don't need... not that it will harm them if you give it to them

Just as we humans can’t resist a treat, our cats can’t either. We humans don’t need treats as such, but they sure do add to life’s pleasure don’t they?

We produce an amazing range of nutritious irresistible Thrive treats. These are simply small pieces of 100% chicken breast, or tuna, or white fish or salmon fillets, chicken liver, or whole shrimp, which have absolutely no added anything in them. All just really gently freeze-dried.

YOU will love the reaction you get when you shake the pack and they come running! Cats being independent creatures makes them hard to ‘train’ but with Thrive you can get them to give you a high five! Send us a video, we love to see this. What else can you get your kitten to do for a Thrive treat?

Our dry foods are produced in the UK in highly sophisticated factories capable of making food with 90% meat content. Our wet foods, such as our tuna variety, are made in Thailand, where tuna originated and where the best tuna is caught using line and pole fishing, rather than trawling methods. This is also where high-quality tuna brands like John West are produced.

We manufacture our freeze-dried treats both in the UK and in state-of-the-art facilities in China. We produce our foods in the best locations worldwide to ensure your pets receive the highest quality. Each region offers the best quality for the type of food we produce.

As we sell to over 30 countries, including those across the EU, the UAE, Hong Kong, and Australia, our foods must be transported globally, making the concept of 'local' irrelevant for us. However, we utilise large modern ships for transportation, which is the most environmentally friendly method, and we use electric vehicles wherever possible.

In essence, we produce our food in the locations that allow us to achieve the highest quality.

Should you add water…well having spoken to thousands of pet owners over the years regarding the best way to feed their pets, all we can say is that opinions vary greatly.

There is no definitive guide, we don’t suggest adding water BUT if you want to add water, it will do them no harm at all. We think cats quite like the crunch they get when biting into our dry foods but if your cat has had teeth issues and YOU think they may prefer it moistened go ahead, we trust you know your cat.

Of course, as you know, always make fresh water available.

In nature, cats eat regularly throughout the night and day.

Unlike dogs, most cats are similar in size and, with a normal activity level (sleeping all day and who knows what at night!), they need between 2-3 cans of our wet food or about 50 grams of our dry food or a mix of both.

Therefore, we suggest feeding your cat perhaps three times a day. A lot of cat owners feed a can in the morning and the evening and leave some dry food for them to graze on during the day. With such high quality meats they won’t over eat.

We have feeding guides as required by legislation and regulation; however, it's important to note that these guides are only guides. Every cat is different and will require a different amount of food each day for various reasons. Cat breeds range in sizes from Main Coon to a Singapura, so simply saying ‘feed x amount per kg of cat weight’ is the best we can do, but it isn’t entirely accurate. Other factors such as the season (cats eat more in winter), their activity levels, age, growth spurts, and many more factors means that the best approach is to give your cat a good cuddle once a week. You need to feel ribs but not necessarily see them.

‘Complete’ is a regulation phrase used that guarantees that a pet food has all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients that your pet requires for a balanced diet. Other pet foods may instead use the phrase ‘complimentary’ which means that it really is a treat at best, or in most cases at worst!

All Thrive wet foods are complete, so whether you feed them together or on their own, you can be confident that you are providing your pet a nutritionally balanced diet.

THRIVE wet foods are all COMPLETE, ensuring that your dog receives everything they need from their food to thrive.

There is no difference! Some brands like you to believe that they use vets to make their foods, but vets are not specialist nutritionists; they are specialists in care. We develop every Thrive recipe with specialist nutritional experts to create the very best for your dog.

Thrive products have been recommended and sold by thousands of vets in many countries since 2003. Vets approve of Thrive because they have seen the results of feeding Thrive for more than 20 years.

We take pride in using high-quality and human-quality ingredients – not the dodgy bits! For example, our Shrimp treats are just that: whole peeled shrimp and our chicken is 100% chicken breast. These are the same ingredients that go into salads, soups, and sandwiches that you’ve probably eaten yourself. The tuna in our Tuna treats is caught by pole and line, and only responsibly fished tuna is used in our Thrive Complete wet food so you can buy Thrive knowing that you are buying responsibly and buying the best!

100% Real, 0% Nonsense.

At Thrive we believe that both you and your pet are what you eat. Because of this, we’ve used our 30+ years of experience in making premium quality food for humans to create ‘real’ pet food with simple, easily recognisable high-quality ingredients, which we have been doing for over 20 years. We insist on using human-grade cuts of meat or fish, no substitutes, and absolutely no animal derivatives. Our food is completely pure and free from artificial colours, flavours, preservatives, added sugars, wheat, gluten, dairy, soya, and GM ingredients. You could say that it’s what we leave out that makes us different!

Open a tin or tube of Thrive and you’ll see exactly what you are feeding your pet: 100% goodness, 0% nonsense.

If you've ever tasted freeze-dried strawberries in breakfast cereals, you'll know how appetising they look and how impressive they taste. We’ve used this same technology to create a range of healthy freeze-dried treats for your pet.

Combining low temperature and low pressure for up to 24 hours, this extremely gentle drying method means the finished product changes very little in size or colour, although it will weigh considerably less. Natural flavours are enhanced and the nutritional content, including vitamins, is undamaged.

As dogs have taste buds that are much more sensitive than ours, you can understand why the flavour of Thrive treats really gets their attention!

We prioritise the welfare of animals in the production of Thrive products by adhering to the highest standards. We care about every single ingredient that goes into Thrive products, that’s why we have such short ingredient lists!

We ensure that our products meet the current UK and EU animal welfare legislation, and where appropriate, they also align with the standards set by internationally recognised animal welfare organisations. Our fish products are sourced from sustainable origins. Additionally, we are proud to have received ethical accreditation from the ‘Ethical Company Organisation’.

Our policy on animal testing is that we do NOT believe in testing our products on caged animals or on carrying out invasive testing.

Thrive pet foods contain only pure ingredients, and all new Thrive foods are tasted by the human owners of Thrive. Only after that do we offer them to our pets and our friends’ pets to see if they like them.

We see no value in testing pet food products on animals that are not kept in a loving environment purely and simply as pets. Additionally, our pet foods are tested by independent outside labs and authorities to ensure they meet recommended nutritional guidelines.

It is best to refer to our feeding guides for how much to feed your dog, however as a simple rule if you can feel their ribs BUT not see them, then they are about the right weight.

All living creatures are individuals and should your pet put on a little weight then cut back on the amount you are feeding them and increase their exercise levels. If your dog is losing weight for no apparent reason then always take them to the vet for a check-up.

All living creatures are individuals and should your pet put on a little weight then cut back on the amount you are feeding them and increase their exercise levels. If your dog is losing weight for no apparent reason then always take them to the vet for a check-up.

Dogs are very adaptable and are able to eat a hugely variable diet. However, most dogs having been generally fed the same food every day, may with significant dietary changes cause your dog to have a few loose motions.

Bearing this in mind it is sensible to gradually change your dog over to Thrive foods over the course of a few days.

Having spoken to literally thousands of pet owners over the years regarding the best way to feed their pets all we can say is that opinions vary greatly.

There is no definitive guide, if you want to add water it will do no harm at all; but rest assured you can just feed your dog our complete products as they are, with no need to add anything else, but of course, as you know, always make fresh water available.

The Comfy Collar comes highly recommended by many vets as a pet-friendly way to prevent your dog from biting, scratching, and licking wounds, incisions, or other injured areas.

Unlike traditional lampshade collars, the Comfy Collar allows your pet to sleep and eat in a normal position, and enables them to see normally, making them feel more comfortable. Additionally, it is fully washable and folds flat for storage when not in use.

To buy, please visit https://comfycollars.com/

Absolutely, yes you can certainly use Thrive treats for training your puppy and dog!

Treats are where we started our business from - making highly palatable, 100% natural treats, for training. Vets then started using the products in the most stressful of all situations for a dog – the consulting room – where they went down well and worked brilliantly for the dogs. So you can certainly use our treats specifically for training.

We are asked why we don’t make all of our foods in the UK. The answer is that we make our foods across the world in the best places possible. Our first priority is to the welfare of our pets and to the animals that go into our pet foods.

Our freeze-dried cat and dog treats are made in the UK. The UK has the most up to date and sophisticated freeze-drying technology in the world.

The wet foods for cats are made in Thailand in the most state-of-the-art modern facilities with incredibly educated and committed teams of people and the highest standard of quality control and hygiene anywhere in the world. The tuna is pole and line caught locally. Chickens originate in Thailand that have incredibly high standards of welfare. Our tuna is made in the same factories as the leading human tuna brands are made. We supply across the world and half of our products go to the Far East in Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, etc. and so we would have to ship across the world wherever we make our foods so, we make it in Thailand because it is the best place to manufacture.

Our dog foods are made in the UK in the most sophisticated and modern factories that have the highest standards of hygiene and traceability and all of the ingredients are sourced with the highest welfare in mind.

Our air dried ProReward dog treats are made in China in the most up to date factories. The sources of ingredients again considering highest levels of welfare standards, and we take great care to always ensure the very best in terms of quality. Unlike other ‘jerky’ type treats we do NOT add glycerine to keep the treats soft. Thrive ProReward treats do get harder over time but dogs don’t care. BUT we care as glycerine isn’t good for dogs and dogs don’t need it. In China the local attitude to chicken and duck breast is to not eat it. They would rather eat chicken feet and the brown meat of these animals. So a lot of breast is thrown away. We however use it.

Our dry foods for cats are made in the UK in the only factory in the world that can use FRESH meat rather than dried meat and so we can make these foods with up to 90% meat. We don’t make a dry food for dogs as we don’t believe dogs should eat it as their only source of food. We make one for cats as cats like to ‘graze’ all day eating small amounts of foods as many cat owners are away during the day.

After over 20 years of making these foods we have never had a bad batch or a recall or harmed or hurt a pet in any way.

If you've ever tasted freeze-dried strawberries in breakfast cereals, you'll know how appetising they look and how impressive they taste. We’ve used this same technology for ‘cooking’ our treats to create a range of healthy and delicious freeze-dried treats for your cat and your dog that are irresistible.

Combining low temperature and low pressure for up to 24 hours, this extremely gentle drying method means the finished product changes very little in size or colour, although it will weigh considerably less.

The natural flavours are enhanced and the nutritional content, including the vitamins, are undamaged. As cats and dogs have many more taste buds than we do and that are much more sensitive than ours, you can understand why the flavour of Thrive treats really gets their attention!

Yes, you can. Thrive's Kind & Gentle treats are perfect for puppies.

Puppies love our puppy chicken wet food which is formulated especially for young pups.

We will soon expand our range to include dry food, which will be great for puppies, dogs, and senior dogs.

Essentially Kind and Gentle is perfect for very small breeds and puppies, although will be loved by bigger dogs too.

The ProReward treats are prefect for bigger breeds and adult dogs as freeze drying liver, hearts and necks are very nutrient-dense which puppies shouldn’t have in large quantities.

Our Kind & Gentle range includes freeze-dried pieces of 100% Chicken Breast, 100% White Fish Fillets, and 100% Chicken Liver. Our ProReward range offers freeze-dried treats such as crunchy
Duck Necks, Chicken Hearts, and Beef Liver cubes. We have air dried ProReward 100% Chicken and duck too.

As a simple rule, if you can feel your dog's ribs but not see them, then they are at a healthy weight.

Grains have developed a bad reputation when used in dog food, but it isn’t grains as such but more than quality of the ingredient that counts. The problem started with cheap pet foods who didn’t use the whole grain but they added grain husks as they were getting them for free.

Poor ingredients like this caused many dogs to develop allergies to cereals and gluten. For these reasons, all Thrive dog food is free from cereals and grains.

Thrive dry foods are grain-free and very high in meat content. They are made from human-quality meat and cooked very gently to preserve all of the essential nutrients needed.

Having made the highest in quality human foods for over 20 years we understood what great food should be. So, when we saw what was being put into dog foods to say we were surprised was an understatement. Most dogs’ foods ingredients labels said ‘a minimum of 4% meat & animal derivatives’ as if they were proud it had at least 4% meat and proud that it had animal derivatives. What is an animal derivative? Even after 20 years making human foods I had no idea and I hated to ask, in case they told me!!! They also added grains but then we found out it wasn’t even the whole grain but they added grain husks as they were getting them for free.

So, we looked at what dogs really need to thrive and being omnivores like us humans unsurprisingly the answer is mainly meat with vegetables and fruits plus because their varieties are rather limited they need some minerals and vitamins added in too. Well who knew?

We also discovered that having eaten rubbish foods some dogs had become intolerant or even allergic to some foods and so we decided to only put one protein in each variety, so unlike some other premium dog foods that have lots of different meats and fish in their meals we have 4 varieties and they are either Chicken, Lamb, Venison or Salmon. This way you can use them as exclusion foods and they all taste very different, which makes it much more fun for your dog.

Of course, as with all Thrive foods they are free from artificial colours, flavours, preservatives, added sugars, wheat, gluten, dairy, soya, and GM ingredients. Fundamentally if you read an ingredient list and you don’t understand every word then it isn’t REAL food

It is what we leave out that makes us different.

100% meat, vegetable and fruits - 0% nonsense

Delivery is free on orders over £30.

For orders less than £30, standard delivery is £3.99.

If you would like your order delivered before 1pm the next working day, delivery is £6.99.

For orders to non-mainland UK, including the highlands and Northern Ireland, delivery is £5.99.

We do not ship to countries outside the UK.

All orders received before 1pm on a working day will be dispatched the same day. Orders received after 1pm will be dispatched during the next working day.

Orders to mainland UK will be delivered in 3-4 working days after dispatch. Please allow 5 days for delivery of your orders to non-mainland UK.

If you have any questions about your order, delivery or returns, please emailinfo@thrivepetfoods.com.

If you would like to return a product, please email us info@thrivepetfoods.com.